Re: [PATCH] git-diff: Add --staged as a synonym for --cached.

From: Avery Pennarun <apenwarr@gmail.com>
Date: Nov 12, 2008, 22:39 UTC
Message-ID: <32541b130811121439tbfc54aeq2999dbebf149d5bc@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <7vbpwkogxq.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>

On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 2:57 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

> Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:
>
>> I'm not sure I agree. They _are_ different things, but in the case of
>> diff, you are really treating each of them like a tree (which makes
>> range operators a little silly, but then that is a silliness already
>> present in "git diff tree1..tree2").
>
> It is not _little_ silly, but quite silly.  It is a historical accident
> and I personally suggest against using it when I teach git to others.

I assume the reason is that "git diff tree1..tree2" works with the differences between tree1 and tree2, much like "git log tree1..tree2" does. On the other hand, "git log tree1 tree2" is something completely different.

So at least in my mental model, it's "git diff tree1 tree2" that's out of place, not really the one with the range specifier.

Apparently what's intuitive to one person isn't always intuitive to the next.

Avery